As we lean into the upcoming fall and holiday season, I felt moved to quote directly from Manfred Spitzer, director of the psychiatric university hospital in Ulm, Germany. Spitzer is a brain researcher who has specialized in researching the learning process.
According to Spitzer, "learning and playing are basically the same" for children. "In play, they try behaviour patterns, handle objects and thereby explore the world....If [they] spend their time in front of screen media, then the exploring of the world is impossible, because only a colorful pulp of images linked with a loud pulp of sound reaches the sense organs. The whole rest is missing!"
"Everyone who acts responsibly and invents games should continuously ask themselves what happens with the child, when they play a particular game. Have they got the possibility to learn on different levels? You never know at which abstraction level the child is deriving rules from the experiences."
Well said, Dr. Spitzer! This is the good stuff.
I hope we continue to live up to this standard as we seek out and offer new toys through our Web site.
Ken